R. C. Zaehner on natural religions
This is a very personal book by a botanist whose close contact with Nature gives him not only a lively interest in all natural things but also a reverence for them and a sense of awe in face of whatever power there may be behind the evolutionary process that brings them into being. Dr Skutch's religion, then, is rooted in Nature and the harmony he sees there: he is only secondarily con- cerned with the practice of institutional religion which he regards as being peripheral at best. His faith is summed up in the last words of his book: 'The one indispensable article of faith seems to be that by caring devotedly, and with such intelligence as we possess, for our own souls, and for the good and beautiful things around us, we increase the total sum of good in the world, and all will be well with us in the end—even if we cannot foresee in detail just how this will come about. If we hold fast to this ultimate faith, and regulate our lives by it, we possess the golden core of religion. All the rest is acces- sory to this central treasure.' This is the book of an amateur in the literal sense of that word—or a 'man wilt loves' or, as he puts it, who 'cares', It is also the book of an amateur in the usually accepted sense of that word—one who has no expert knowledge of any religion but who has browsed around among secondary sources in search of what he is looking for —'appreciation, devoted care, and aspira- tion'. Among primitives he finds what he wants in the 'easy-going, non-acquisitive, uncompetitive society' of the Arapesh of north-eastern New Guinea; among devel- oped religions among the Jains because, un- like the Buddhists, they admit the existence of a soul and, like the Buddhists, have the deepest respect for all sentient life. This, for the author, is of the greatest importance, for he feels that 'caring' must not only ex- tend to one's own soul and to one's fellow- men, but also to the animal creation and 'beyond the animals, to the plants too, in- deed to the whole universe.'
Religion, Mr Skutch thinks, is a universal sympathy and empathy with all that is. But it is more than this, for it is also a conscious striving to perfect oneself and one's environ- ment in order to make both worthy of beati- tude and immortality. It doesn't matter very much whether there is such a thing as per- sonal survival so long as we behave in a manner that makes us worthy of a blissful hereafter, whether this actually exists or not. In the evolutionary process we must recog- nise that there is 'a seed of divinity' that 'makes us seek the highest good, which we call God. Unless there had been a seed of divinity at the beginning, the world would never move Godward.' The question is: Does the world move Godward, even in Dr Skutch's sense? For communion with Nature, which the author thinks brings us into the presence of God, is not facilitated by the rapidity of modern transport: quite the contrary. The genuine 'communicants' have in fact been succeeded by those who flock to beauty spots, becoming every day more accessible, not to commune but be- cause this, they obscurely feel, is the right thing to do. The 'denaturalisation of Nature, it is to be feared, is proceeding onward with a more frightening momentum than Dr Skutch would care to concede.
Be that as it may. Dr Skutch has one last anchor which none can take away from him—the God within. 'One can be agnostic about the heavenly God,' he says, 'but no one can be agnostic about the God within him.' If only this were true! Unfortunately it is precisely this agnosticism that afflicts -much of the modern world. It may be true that without belief in the God within and without some kind of belief in God as final cause to which the 'seed of Deity' in evolu- tionary, matter inevitably tends, life may seem meaningless and not worth living. Nevertheless it is this double loss of belief that many are facing today. And, facing it, they do not care—which, for Dr Skutch, is the ultimate blasphemy.
Dr Skutch is sceptical enough to take full account of the reality of evil, but he remains an optimist nonetheless. His book will make no appeal to intellectuals, to whom it is not addressed, nor to 'the inert and uninteresting mess of those who believe in nothing' so tersely dismissed by Teilhard de Chardin. It is addressed to those who want to care, and this is its justification.
R. C. Zochner is Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford, Fellow of All Souls, and author of books on Zoroastrianism.
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